The importance of nurturing your soul

I have a little confession to make. My passion is supporting women find their inner confidence, wisdom and happiness, yet recently I stopped looking after me and I certainly wasn’t practicing what I preach.

The net result was that I felt stressed and exhausted but more than that, my soul felt empty. Do you recognise that feeling? The feeling that something deep inside of you is missing. That sense of being unsettled, not quite right. Looking for something external to fill the gap yet nothing really does. Do you recognise that feeling?

How did this happen when I know all that I do about self care?

It happened because I am normal, I am fallible and I am a woman juggling a business, teenagers (& countless trips to the supermarket!), relationship, housework, gardening, life, friends … you know how it is.

As I don’t like that ‘out of sorts’ feeling, I went back to basics and did what works for me. I spent some time in nature and I found time to be alone. I went to a festival. I caught up with my dearest friends. And I treated myself to a wonderful yoga retreat in Greece. I filled my emotional cup with all the things that mean a lot to me.

Feeding your soul is an essential part of inner happiness. It’s not selfish in the negative sense of the word. It’s selfish in the most positive, nurturing and self-loving way possible.

As women we are often hard-wired to put ourselves at the bottom of the list, making sure everyone else is ok first and then if we’re really lucky we might do something for ourselves… BUT then we feel incredibly guilty about it at the same time! That’s not helpful to us or anyone else. When we are fully nurtured and we give ourselves time and love we are in a much better place to give time and love to everyone around us.

So let me ask you this: What are you doing to feed your soul and nurture the inner you? Are you making the time and effort or do you have a huge long list of excuses why this can’t or doesn’t happen? How would you feel if you started to dedicate more love and care to yourself? Can you imagine the wonderful inner joy when you meet your own needs and feel full-on, deep-down happiness with yourself, with life?

To re-introduce yourself to the art of self-love, start making a list of things you want to do by the end of the year, those things that will fill up your soul and wake up your inner happy. Can you come up with 20 things? Can we push it to 30? This isn’t about spending a lot of money – although of course if that’s what does it for you that is completely ok – it’s about doing things for you.

And if you want to whizz me an email (su@suwinsbury.com) and let me know how your list is going, that would be fantastic.
Here’s to your happiness!